Daily Archives: May 14, 2016

I was offered the opportunity to read and review this book – and took it like a shot. The premise very much intrigued me. Would I enjoy it?

It all starts with a text: Please, Wylie, I need your help.
Wylie hasn’t heard from Cassie in over a week, not since their last fight. But that doesn’t matter. Cassie’s in trouble, so Wylie decides to do what she has done so many times before: save her best friend from herself. This time it’s different, though. Instead of telling Wylie where she is, Cassie sends cryptic clues. And instead of having Wylie come by herself, Jasper shows up saying Cassie sent him to help. Trusting the guy who sent Cassie off the rails doesn’t feel right, but Wylie has no choice: she has to ignore her gut instinct and go with him.

I’m not giving any more of the blurb, because it moves into Spoiler territory with the next paragraph and the plot is too tightly constructed to allow the reader experience to be so compromised.

I was really caught up with Wylie’s dilemma – struggling with her anxiety since her mother’s sudden death, she is becoming increasingly isolated. However, when her friend gets herself into yet another scrape, Wylie battles her nerves to leave her house in response to Cassie’s cryptic message. Yes… I did find Wylie’s ability to overcome her recent agoraphobia convincing, along with her sudden determination to try and help her friend. The plot moves along at a fair clip, and while Wylie is still grappling with her fear, she is also beginning to reconsider her opinion of Jasper.

I like the way McCreight steadily presents us with a series of surprises, one after the other, jolting us – and the young protagonists – from our initial assumptions and had me reading late into the night to discover what happens next. The subsequent adventures where nothing is as it seems gives the story an almost gothic feel, particularly when they are finally reunited with Cassie.

The backstory that triggers the whole conspiracy does leave me slightly scratching my head, as I am still not convinced as to why the outliers would be quite so crucial to everyone apparently scrabbling to get their hands on them. However, this is the first book in a trilogy and there is a high likelihood that this initial explanation has another couple of layers beneath it, if McCreight continues in the same vein throughout the next instalments in this series.

That said, I’m not wholly convinced at the widespread nature of the conspiracy and feel I need to read at least the next book in the series to know whether I’m selling the author short. It may well be resolved to my satisfaction in the next two books in this trilogy. However, as the story was left on a complete cliffhanger, I definitely plan to read at least the next book – I need to know what happens next to Wylie.
8/10